AD AMERICAM Journal of American Studies Vol. 9, 2008 ISSN 1896-9461 ISBN 978-83-233-2689-2 Magdalena Paluszkiewicz-Misiaczek DIONNE QUINTUPLETS: UNSUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT OF A NOBLE SOCIETY The famous Dionne quintuplets： Annette, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecille and Marie were bom in Canada on May 28, 1934. The girls became national celebrities, wards of the state in a special hospital-home, studied constantly by doctors and scientists. The paper describes Dionne girls’ life story in the context of Anglophone-Francophone tensions and the ever present question： how far can state interfere in the lives of their citizens and when such interference proves to be harmful what kind of compensation measures should be imple­ mented? Life story of Dionne Quintuplets even now, over seven decades after their birth, reads like a sensation which could make the headlines of tabloid press. Yet, below this superficial layer of sheer sensation life story of the famous five sisters remains tightly knit with certain meanders of Canadian history with Anglophone- Francophone tensions and the ever present question: how far can state interfere in the lives of their citizens and when such interference proves to be harmful what kind of compensation measures should be implemented? The famous quintuplets: Annette, Emilie, Yvonne, Cecille and Marie Dionne were born on May 28, 1934 on a farm near Callender or, as some sources state, near Cor- beil, Northern Ontario, Canada. The chances of having one egg, identical quintuplets are one in 57 million, and so far no other set of identical quintuplets has been born. In 1934 the chances that the children would survive were probably similar, as they were born two months prematurely, so small that they could be held in a human palm and their total weight together was only 6.5 kg. Their mother, whose life was seriously endangered because of high blood pressure and toxemia of pregnancy, was not assisted by a team of well trained, medical staff in a maternity ward of a clinic equipped with all the necessary equipment, incubators in the first place, but by two midwives without any professional training except from personal experi- ence,1 in a house without running water and electricity, but with a pile of manure in the yard and flies entering freely the room where Mrs. Dionne was in labor. The girls, two of whom had been born before country doctor, Alan Roy Dafoe arrived, were given conditional baptism, wrapped in some tattered pieces of cloth that could be found in the house and put into a basket placed by an open stove to keep warm. They were left under the protection of a fresh graduate from a nursing school, Yvonne Leroux (it was her first confinement case) who for the next two days and 1 The first to assist Mrs. Dionne was her aunt Mme Legros, yet not knowing what to do with such a strange case she resorted only to prayer, the second midwife summoned by Oliva Dionne was Mme Labelle, more experienced as she had borne eighteen children herself, and assisted three hundred births. It was Mme Labelle who finally decided that doctor’s help would be indispensable (Berton 1997： 37). 70 MAGDALENA PALUSZKIEWICZ-MISIACZEK nights in succession made sure that the temperature in the room was constant, fed them with drops of warm water from eyedropper and moistured them with olive oil. Only at the first days of June, when the news about quintuplet’s birth spread around Canada and the USA thanks to press reports, incubators were delivered (it took a while to find old-fashioned, turn of the century, gas-operated models, which would run in a house without electricity). Also the campaign to deliver breast milk donated by mothers from nearby villages was organized. Against all odds and con­ trary to medical knowledge, which did not give the babies many chances, miracu­ lously all five girls survived first critical weeks. The quints’ parents, Oliva and Elizire Dionne (at the time of their birth 27 and 25, respectively) not very prosperous farmers as it was the time of Great Depression, yet they had no debts and owned a car. They already had five living children to provide for (the sixth died of pneumonia in his infancy). Contrary to the image popularized by the press in later years and fitting well to the stereotypes of French speaking Canadians, they were not totally uneducated, almost illiterate peasants. Oliva Dionne completed grade nine (only small minority of French Ontarians did so) and could speak both French and English. Elizire Dionne, however, was forced to leave school at the age of 11, after the death of her mother when she had to take up the house­ hold duties for her father and five older brothers. Thus she had only the basics of formal education and spoke little English, although she understood it (Dionne Quintuplets, Welch). Definitely at the time of quintuplets’ birth their mother was in the state of complete physical exhaustion, while their father was in a state of nerv­ ous collapse, shattered with the news that his already large family, for which he was barely able to provide, increased to the number of twelve. Quints’ arrival to this world once again brought back the issue of clash of the priorities and values between French and English Canadians. Already the dispute which place Corbeil or Callender was to be declared as their official birth place points to one of many controversies connected with Dionne sisters’ lives as well as tensions between French-speaking and English-speaking communities of Canada. The family farm where the children were born was placed on unregistered territory, close to both Corbeil (French speaking village with the local Roman Catholic parish) and to Callender (predominantly English speaking small town, administrative center for the local people). When the children became world famous both places began claiming right to be called their birth place (Dionne Quintuplets, Welch). Apart from the formal issue of whether the predominantly English or French community should have the privilege to be called quintuplets’ birthplace, girls’ birth stirred also hot discussion over the issue of large French-Canadian families, the fa­ mous revenge of the cradle, and the fear that French Canadians were having more children in order to eventually outnumber the Anglophones. When the Quints were born, enlarging the number of the children in Dionne family to 10, popular and widely read Globe and Mail stated openly： “These latest arrivals will arouse fresh apprehension regarding French-Canadian ascendancy in Northern Ontario” (McLaren 1986: 124). The Anglophones were not so much afraid of being outnumbered, but rather of general decrease of the standard of life. (... ) part of the whole problem is the extraordinary fecundity of the French-Canadians and the suspicion that the French are deliberately trying to outbreed the English, even though in doing so it may involve the lowering of the standard of wages and living and all that depends on such standards (McLaren 1986: 124). DIONINIE QUINTUPLETS: UNSUCCESSFUL EXPERIMENT OF A NOBLE SOCIETY 71 It is difficult to prove that it was a general tendency among all the French- Canadian families. Large sizes of their families were due more to the influence of Roman Catholic Church, lack of knowledge on contraception and the subordinate position of women as well as the fact that in those rural areas large number of chil­ dren was economically useful on the farms. Also high child mortality rate worked against having small families. Even though their birth was a great shock for their parents and brought a number of unfavorable comments concerning French-Canadian fertility rates, the quints became celebrities in the country and world-wide almost from the very mo­ ment when their father called the local newspaper and asked whether a birth an­ nouncement for five babies would cost as much as for one. A few days after they were born Oliva Dionne got a proposal from Chicago Century of Progress Exposi­ tion, a type of world fair, to display the children on a tour as soon as they were healthy enough to survive such trip. After consulting the local priest2 and family physician, doctor Dafoe, both of whom did not discourage him from taking such a step, he consented, hoping to that the money from the contract would help to provide for the entire family. When the public was informed about this plan, general outcry about child ex­ ploitation started and both parents were condemned for being greedy and cruel, although Elzire Dionne, being a typical, subordinate wife, was not informed about her husband’s plan until her signature on a contact with Chicago Century of Progress Exposition was necessary and eventually she refused to sign it. This situation, how­ ever, gave the provincial government an excellent excuse to withdraw custody of the five babies from their parents, initially for the period of two years and then until the age of 18 on the basis of Dionne Quintuplets’ Guardianship Act which was passed in March 1935. The girls became wards of the state, a special hospital-home was built for their use just across the road from their family farmhouse. Although officially both parents were to have unlimited access to the children, in reality they were made unwelcome and infrequent visitors. It was believed that in the “sterile” environment of the nursery, under the care of professional medical staff and teach­ ers, far from germs, uneducated parents and dirty siblings the babies would grow into model children, paragons of modern educational methods. The girls were stud­ ied by doctors and scientists, measured and x-rayed frequently in order to asses their physical development.